Received my 38mm bracelet from Utica guy today.
Overall, decent quality band. When compared to Apple's OEM bracelet, you can see the difference in quality, especially at the clasp. The big gaps at the release buttons makes it look low quality IMHO. But hey, who looks at the clasp all day? Apple's bracelet looks and feels excellent--it's tight, flawless, and has very little issues, if any.
Back to the Utica band. The gap is there, but not too big for me in real life:
And here's Apple's:
The bigger gaps in the Utica 42mm bracelets may be due to either manufacturing problems or the size of the watch & the wearer's wrist. If you have smaller wrists and wear the bigger 42mm AW, the bracelet will almost angle down 90 degrees, thereby exaggerating the gap. My 6.5" wrists, paired with the smaller 38mm, minimizes the gap. Here's a side profile of my wrist with Apple's bracelet. You can see the that first link has a smaller angle, so gaps are minimized:
Unfortunately I'm going to return it. The problem is that it's too long. Utica's shortest is 9 links between the clasp and end link. Apple's is 7 links. For my 6.5" wrists, in the summer, I'm wearing 8 and 9 links on each side of he clasp. Utica's only provides 9 & 9 link on each side, so it's 1-2 links too long for me (and will get worse in the winter when my wrist shrinks by about 1 link). Also, Utica's links are longer--compare the left side of the bracelets below (both have 9 links). So realistically, I'd probably need 8/8 or 8/7 links with Utica's bracelet.
Here's a quick shot comparing the bracelets. The shorter one is Apple's (and the Utica band has already been shortened as much as possible):
Too bad, I would've kept the bracelet had it worked out. I'll wait longer or just keep Apple's excellent bracelet.
I also habe very small wrists - when the bracelet will be too ling I will ask my watch maker to short it.
Why dont you do that? Every watch maker can do that.
